What's not on the ballot in Israel: Peace — election campaign avoids the Palestinian settlement question

One question is almost absent from campaigning for Israel's upcoming election — peace and a political settlement with the Palestinians. Ahead of the October 27 parliamentary election, and despite the enormity of the war in Gaza, campaigning has centred largely on domestic and personal issues, and on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Yet it is Israel's Arab minority voters, Palestinian by heritage, who might well decide who becomes prime minister. They make up around 20 percent of the electorate. Thanks to complex coalition mathematics, Arab parties might be the ones to crown Netanyahu's main rival, former military chief Gadi Eisenkot, who leads a centre-right opposition bloc.

Despite that, campaigns by both Arab parties and Jewish politicians have avoided talking about what the outcome might mean for Jewish-Arab relations, for the possibility of a two-state solution, or even for US President Donald Trump's vision of a peace-through-prosperity deal between Israelis and Palestinians.

Michael Milshtein, a retired Israeli army colonel and former head of Palestinian affairs in Israel's military intelligence agency, said: 'The election campaign has been bizarre. The campaign has been focused on domestic and personal issues, and on Netanyahu.'

In his words, it has not included 'the very deep complicated issue of the critical relations between us and the Palestinians, and what kind of scenarios or solutions are left after the October 7 Hamas attack and the Gaza War — for any kind of political settlement.'

Outside Israel, especially among Arab leaders, there is alarm over the absence of any serious debate about how to end the multi-front conflicts Israel is engaged in. HA Hellyer, a geopolitical scholar specialising in the region, said the silence carries a warning about what may follow.

Hellyer said: 'Netanyahu, or not, the Israelis are on a particular trajectory when it comes to foreign and security policies.' He added that opposition politicians blame Netanyahu for Israel's increasing diplomatic isolation, but when it comes to Gaza they are not actually arguing with the policies; they support the overall settlement project in the West Bank and the incursion into southern Lebanon — their proposition is that they could have done things in a better way.

Mentions of the Gaza conflict in campaigning have been largely limited to clashes over who was to blame for failing to prevent the Hamas attack on southern Israel, which killed more than 1,200 people. The Eisenkot-led Change bloc has focused on Netanyahu's role in the lead-up to the October 7, 2023 massacre, arguing he ignored warnings. But the bloc has done little to flesh out its governing policy platform.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu's campaign has sought to frame Eisenkot as an appeaser and puppet of Arab party leaders such as Mansour Abbas, leader of the Islamist Ra'am party, and Ahmad Tibi, leader of Ta'al party, arguing he would compromise on core security issues to persuade them to join or vote with his coalition bloc to give him a Knesset majority.

The Jerusalem Post lamented in an editorial this week: 'The lack of real content is a major problem for such a crucial election.' Few observers see any chance of a negotiated peace or a two-state solution any time soon.

Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, a fierce Netanyahu critic, said that while there has been debate about how successful the Gaza war has been in degrading Hamas, 'it's true that the main issue of our future with the Palestinians has been ignored. Had I been running, I would have talked about it the whole time.' In his view, the root lies in the huge trauma of October 7, along with a perception that public opinion has shifted further to the right.

Olmert is not entirely convinced that perception is accurate this time. He pointed out that Netanyahu's ruling Likud party is likely to lose a significant number of its Knesset seats — from its current tally of 32 to around 20 — after next week's elections. Nonetheless, he said, parties are hesitant to talk about any political process with the Palestinians, negotiations or a two-state solution, because they worry they will lose support.

Polls show overwhelming Jewish-Israeli backing for military action. On the conflict with Iran, Israel Democracy Institute surveys have recorded support as high as 93 percent for the initial strikes, and nearly 80 percent back continuation of the war. There has also been overwhelming support for sustaining military pressure on Hezbollah in Lebanon and for multi-front security strategies.

Sven Burgsdorff, a former EU representative and ambassador to the West Bank, does not share Olmert's view, arguing there is not much difference between Netanyahu and the leaders of the centre-right Change bloc when it comes to Gaza or a two-state solution. He said none of its main leaders — Eisenkot, Naftali Bennett, Yair Lapid and Avigdor Lieberman — question the army's conduct in the Gaza war, nor are they supportive of Palestinian self-determination.

Olmert still hopes for a Netanyahu defeat and says that if Eisenkot is installed, he might make conciliatory moves such as meeting Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian National Authority. But with Bennett and Lieberman in his cabinet, he would not be able to do anything big or quickly, since both are completely opposed to the idea of Palestinian sovereignty.

The warning in the end is clear: without serious movement toward a two-state solution, Israel risks alienating more of its traditional allies in Europe and the United States. Peace may not be on the ballot, analysts say, but the question will return before Israel after the election regardless.